Measuring Social Influence

As the social media landscape continues to evolve, brands are racing to grow and nurture their social channels. Most businesses understand the importance and effect of viral marketing campaigns, engaging social channels and an effective strategy. However there can be a misunderstanding of how the influence generated from these campaigns can be measured and used to enhance brand concepts and strategy.

The definition of “Influence” is “the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself”. The idea of a social influence campaign is to plant a seed with consumers to get them engaged with your brand. Brand investment is worthwhile if the number of new consumers exceed the threshold of a profitable return, but what are the most effective ways to measure this?

Consumption – How many people have consumed the content pushed out through the social channel. This can be through reach, how many people have seen this content or engagement, how many people have interacted with the content though likes, comments or shares depending on your KPI. You also want to make sure the people that are consuming this content are your target audience.

Shareable Content – How many times was your content shared? This is this the key to making your content viral. The more shares the more reach and impressions your brand can achieve. Content that is most shared is content that is impactful and carries a message that your audience will be interested in or will want to pass on.

Lead-Generation – With over 240 million active monthly users on Facebook, 1.2 billion active members on Facebook and over 300 million users on Linkedin, connecting with your audience has never been this accessible. Measuring lead generation is vital to see how effective your content is with your audience.

Sales – Social Influence can drive sales; you can track how much profit you generate for how much spend was put in to the social campaign. This gives a clear ROI for the brand which is vital when measuring influence.

When designing your social campaign always consider your platform, the aims you want to achieve, who your audience are and your brands core values, this will give you a steady base to grow and hit your targets. Measuring social influence will always depend on the aim of your campaign but the power of social is massive and is constantly growing and evolving. It is how you can take the power of social media and mould your social channels to effectively influence your audience.